Case study research was once the primary methodology of research in political science. The shift to other methodologies in recent decades suggests has led to a devaluing of these approaches. This article explores six roles for case studies in the social sciences and argues that an understanding of the multiple aims of research supports a methodological pluralism that includes case study research.

Interpretive Political Science is the second of two volumes featuring a selection of key writings by R.A.W. Rhodes. Volume II looks forward and explores the 'interpretive turn' and its implications for the craft of political science, especially public administration, and draws together articles from 2005 onwards on the theme of 'the interpretive turn' in political science. Part I provides a summary statement of the interpretive approach, and Part II develops the theme of blurring genres (...) and discusses a variety of research methods common in the humanities, including: ethnographic fieldwork, life history, and focus groups. Part III demonstrates how the genres of thought and presentation found in the humanities can be used in political science. It presents four examples of such blurring 'at work' with studies of: applied anthropology and civil service reform; women's studies and government departments; and storytelling and local knowledge. The book concludes with a summary of what is edifying about an interpretive approach, and why this approach matters, and revisits some of the more common criticisms before indulging in plausible conjectures about the future of interpretivism. The author seeks new and interesting ways to explore governance, high politics, public policies, and the study of public administration in general. (shrink)

Political science is divided between methodological individualists, who seek to explain political phenomena by reference to individuals and their interactions, and holists (or nonreductionists), who consider some higher-level social entities or properties such as states, institutions, or cultures ontologically or causally significant. We propose a reconciliation between these two perspectives, building on related work in philosophy. After laying out a taxonomy of different variants of each view, we observe that (i) although political phenomena result from underlying (...) individual attitudes and behavior, individual-level descriptions do not always capture all explanatorily salient properties, and (ii) nonreductionistic explanations are mandated when social regularities are robust to changes in their individual-level realization. We characterize the dividing line between phenomena requiring nonreductionistic explanation and phenomena permitting individualistic explanation and give examples from the study of ethnic conflicts, social-network theory, and international-relations theory. (shrink)

v. 1. Interpretive theories -- v. 2. Interpretive methods -- v. 3. Interpreting politics -- v. 4. Interpreting policies.

This special issue of Human Rights Review is devoted to an exploration of the current human rights research agendas within the political science discipline. Research on human rights is truly an interdisciplinary quest in which various epistemologies can contribute to each other and form a larger dialogue concerning rights and wrongs. This special issue is devoted to an expansive understanding of the state of research on human rights in the political science discipline. One common theme throughout (...) these contributions is the need for a more nuanced conceptualization of human rights, tools to promote these rights and as social scientists, methodologies employed to study these rights. A second theme is the policy relevance that can be derived from our empirical analysis. This volume demonstrates that the integration of theoretically and normatively rich concepts, empirical social science, and policy relevance do not have to be mutually exclusive when studying human rights. (shrink)

Evidential pluralism has been used to justify mixed-method research in political science. The combination of methodologies within case study analysis, however, has not received as much attention. This article applies the theory of evidential pluralism to causal inference in the case study method process tracing. I argue that different methodologies for process tracing commit to distinct fundamental theories of causation. I show that, problematically, one methodology may not recognize as genuine knowledge the fundamental claims of the other. (...) By evaluating the epistemic reliability of these fundamental claims, we can find a way out of such conflicts and rescue pluralism. (shrink)

John Gerring's exceptional textbook has been thoroughly revised in this second edition. It offers a one-volume introduction to social science methodology relevant to the disciplines of anthropology, economics, history, political science, psychology and sociology. This new edition has been extensively developed with the introduction of new material and a thorough treatment of essential elements such as conceptualization, measurement, causality and research design. It is written for students, long-time practitioners and methodologists and covers both qualitative and quantitative (...) methods. It synthesizes the vast and diverse field of methodology in a way that is clear, concise and comprehensive. While offering a handy overview of the subject, the book is also an argument about how we should conceptualize methodological problems. Thinking about methodology through this lens provides a new framework for understanding work in the social sciences. (shrink)

Philosophers of social science have emphasized mechanistic approaches to causal inquiry for some time now, showing why focusing on the mechanisms behind correlations is preferable to focusing on correlations alone (cf. Johnson 2006, Little 1991, Reiss 2007, 2009, Steel 2004, see also King, Keohane, and Verba 1994 for an example of purely correlational research). In Process Tracing: from Metaphor to Analytic Tool, political scientists Andrew Bennett and Jeffrey Checkel present a concrete method for finding evidence of causal mechanisms, (...) process tracing. Process tracers give evidence for causal relations in terms of the observable implications of the underlying causal mechanisms through which a putative cause affects some effect of interest. Such observable implications often take the form of a chain of events, or process, which connects cause and effect. Though Process Tracing contains applications of mechanistic reasoning unfamiliar to philosophers, and as such will be of interest to those working in the mechanist tradition, Bennett and Checkel’s own discussion of the philosophical foundations of process tracing is limited. The reader will have to delve deep into the volume’s contributed chapters for links between the literature on causation and this new method. (shrink)

Giovanni Sartori (1924-2017) was a founder and icon of contemporary political science. A number of his books and articles have become part of the theoretical and conceptual basis of the field, and of social science in general. This volume brings together selected essays that examine Sartori as a scholar, university professor and intellectual. It is unique in covering all three aspects of Sartori's academic work: comparative politics, social science methodology and political theory. General overviews (...) of Sartori's contribution to political science are complemented by chapters that focus on specific areas of his interest; and Sartori's theoretical and methodological contributions are examined alongside his extensive public appearances, which remain little known outside Italy. (shrink)

Political science research, particularly in international relations and comparative politics, has increasingly become dominated by statistical and formal approaches. The promise of these approaches shifted the methodological emphasis away from case study research. In response, supporters of case study research argue that case studies provide evidence for causal claims that is not available through statistical and formal research methods, and many have advocated multimethod research. I propose a way of understanding the integration of multiple methodologies in which the (...) causes sought in case studies are treated as singular causation and contingent on a theoretical framework. (shrink)

The methodology of classical economics presents a fascinating glimpse of Enlightenment scientists wrestling with ancient epistemological problems that were considered overcome in the new age. The tension between hypotheses and empirical investigation abolished by transcending the old metaphysical and religious idols recurs as efforts are made to clarify the new practice of physical science and to extend this practice to the study of human action; debates arise over the source and use of “hypotheses” and the ancient Platonic-Aristotelian split (...) is given new life. Deborah Redman has written a magisterial review of this development. (shrink)

Political methodologists have long sought to develop standards that can guide political scientists in the process of concept formation. Yet, the methodology literature has struggled to provide satisfactory solutions to the fundamental problem of conceptualization: for any given concept, there are a large number of attributes one could postulate as its defining characteristics, and it is unclear how to adjudicate between different possible definitions. We leverage the fact that the theory within which a concept appears places important (...) restrictions on concept formation: conceptualizations entail ontological claims that need to be consistent with those of the theories in which they appear. (shrink)

Epistemologies and research methods are not free of metaphysics. This is to say that they are both, supported by (or presumed by), and support (or presume) fundamental ontologies. A discussion of the epistemological foundations of "multimethod" research in the social sciences—in as much as such research claims to unearth "causal" relations—therefore cannot avoid the ontological presuppositions or implications of such a discussion. But though there isn’t necessarily a perfect correspondence between ontology, epistemology, and methodology, they do constrain each other. (...) As such it is possible to make methodological choices that are at odds with one’s (implicit) ontology or argue from an ontology that is inconsistent one’s choice of methods.Yet lack of recognition of this fact has hampered methodological discussions in political science, especially with respect to the discussion on the merits of multimethod research. The ontology implicitly accepted in such discussions is "reductionist" and "regularist," that is, one that respectively defines causes in terms of noncausal relations and states of affair and affirms that such noncausal relations are regularities in nature. This article will argue that any attempt to fit "multimethod" research (where "multimethod" signifies some combination of inferential statistics and case studies) within this narrow ontology is destined to fail since such a metaphysics logically cannot accord case studies a necessary or sufficient role in the in the establishment of causal relations. However, there are metaphysical positions within the ambit of an empiricist philosophy of science that can accommodate multiple methods without contradiction. The article discusses two such ontologies and suggests ways in which they might allow the establishment of a coherent epistemological foundation for multimethod research, however, within a decidedly empiricist philosophy of science. (shrink)

(This was a contribution to the Philosophy and Methodology of Political Science conference in Pullman, WA in September 2019.).

The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences provides a remarkable comparative assessment of the variations of positivism and alternative epistemologies in the contemporary human sciences. Often declared obsolete, positivism is alive and well in a number of the fields; in others, its influence is significantly diminished. The essays in this collection investigate its mutations in form and degree across the social science disciplines. Looking at methodological assumptions field by field, individual essays address anthropology, area studies, economics, history, the (...) philosophy of science, political science and political theory, and sociology. Essayists trace disciplinary developments through the long twentieth century, focusing on the decades since World War II. Contributors explore and contrast some of the major alternatives to positivist epistemologies, including Marxism, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, narrative theory, and actor-network theory. Almost all the essays are written by well-known practitioners of the fields discussed. Some essayists approach positivism and anti-positivism via close readings of texts influential in their respective disciplines. Some engage in ethnographies of the present-day human sciences; others are more historical in method. All of them critique contemporary social scientific practice. Together, they trace a trajectory of thought and method running from the past through the present and pointing toward possible futures. Contributors. Andrew Abbott, Daniel Breslau, Michael Burawoy, Andrew Collier , Michael Dutton, Geoff Eley, Anthony Elliott, Stephen Engelmann, Sandra Harding, Emily Hauptmann, Webb Keane, Tony Lawson, Sophia Mihic, Philip Mirowski, Timothy Mitchell, William H. Sewell Jr., Margaret R. Somers, George Steinmetz, Elizabeth Wingrove. (shrink)

This article contributes to the discussion regarding the relationship between idealisation, de-idealisation and cognitive scientific progress. In this, I raise the question of the significance of the gradual de-idealisation procedure for constructing political science theories. I show that conceptions that assume the reversibility of the idealisation process can be an extremely useful theoretical perspective in reconstructions of political science modelling and analyses of scientific progress in political science. I base my position on the results (...) of the methodological reconstruction of Richard Jankowski’s theory of voting. My reconstruction and results of empirical studies show that by gradually removing simplifying assumptions, models can emerge that more accurately identify the determinants of the voting decision and the corresponding relationships. In the case I analysed, the transition from coarse-grained to fine-grained models likely demarcates the line of scientific progress. (shrink)

Research Methodology for Social Sciences provides guidelines for designing and conducting evidence-based research in social sciences and interdisciplinary studies using both qualitative and quantitative data. Blending the particularity of different sub-disciplines and interdisciplinary nature of social sciences, this volume: Provides insights on epistemological issues and deliberates on debates over qualitative research methods; Covers different aspects of qualitative research techniques and evidence-based research techniques including survey design, choice of sample, construction of indices, statistical inferences, and data analysis; Discusses concepts, techniques, (...) and tools at different stages of research beginning with design of field surveys to collect raw data and then to analyze the data using statistical and econometric methods; With illustrations, examples and a reader friendly approach, this volume will serve as a key reference material for compulsory research methodology courses at Doctoral levels across different disciplines like Economics, Sociology, Women's Studies, Education, Anthropology, Political Science, International Relations, Philosophy, History, Business Management and the like. This volume will also be indispensable for post-graduate courses dealing with quantitative techniques and data analysis. (shrink)

Jürgen Habermas’s theories have received enormous attention in the public sphere as well as in political science. It is therefore surprising that his method, rational reconstruction, is not more debated. In political science the method is of particular interest because of its ambition to bridge the gap between empirical and normative approaches. In this article the author traces Habermas’s interest in rational reconstruction by going back to his writings on theory and practice and subsequently shows what (...) the method’s main principles are. He then specifies how this methodological conception is used in Habermas’s political theory. Finally, the introduction of an empirical design allows the author to discuss one of the fundamental tensions in Habermas’s approach: the hypotheses arrived at through rational reconstruction are empirical hypotheses but cannot be tested by empirical means. (shrink)

Most contemporary political science researchers are advocates of multimethod research, however, the value and proper role of qualitative methodologies, like case study analysis, is disputed. A pluralistic philosophy of science can shed light on this debate. Methodological pluralism is indeed valuable, but does not entail causal pluralism. Pluralism about the goals of science is relevant to the debate and suggests a focus on the difference between evidence for warrant and evidence for use. I propose that case (...) study research provides evidence for use through providing information that bears on the applicability of causal generalizations and risk assessment. (shrink)

In its most recent form, the debate about the relationship between quantitative and qualitative methodology in political science has been shaped by the publication of Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research by Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba in 1994 (hereafter DSI). The focus of this debate has been case study research. DSI advocates that qualitative research, particularly case study research, be modeled on the template of quantitative research. The authors claim that all (...) research has the same logic of inquiry and that this is most clearly exemplified in quantitative work. I argue that the underlying philosophy of science of DSI is monistic and positivistic in ways not productive for understanding various different purposes that political science knowledge may have. Different methodologies have different strengths and so are suited to different ends. I examine this in relation to Julian Reiss’s discussion of different concepts of causality and argue that case study research is suited to understanding causal mechanisms in ways that make such research better suited to inform policy decisions. I finish with an example using David Fearon’s 2006 Congressional Testimony on Iraq. (shrink)

Natural experiments are an increasingly popular research design in political science. This popularity raises a number of questions. First, what are natural experiments and why are they appealing? Second, what makes a good natural experiment? And finally, are natural experiments able to provide resources for knowledge production that other methodologies cannot or do not provide? Using Mary Morgan’s and Thad Dunning’s recent work on natural experiments, I offer answers to the first two questions and use the analysis to (...) argue that natural experiments highlight features of knowledge production that support methodological pluralism and the multiple aims of research. (shrink)

This article examines the methodology of a core branch of contemporary political theory or philosophy: “analytic” political theory. After distinguishing political theory from related fields, such as political science, moral philosophy, and legal theory, the article discusses the analysis of political concepts. It then turns to the notions of principles and theories, as distinct from concepts, and reviews the methods of assessing such principles and theories (e.g., the reflective-equilibrium method), for the purpose of (...) justifying or criticizing them. Finally, it looks at a recent debate on how abstract and idealized political theory should be, and assesses the significance of disagreement in political theory. The discussion is carried out from an angle inspired by the philosophy of science. (shrink)

This article examines the methodology of a core branch of contemporary political theory or philosophy: “analytic” political theory. After distinguishing political theory from related fields, such as political science, moral philosophy, and legal theory, the article discusses the analysis of political concepts. It then turns to the notions of principles and theories, as distinct from concepts, and reviews the methods of assessing such principles and theories, for the purpose of justifying or criticizing them. (...) Finally, it looks at a recent debate on how abstract and idealized political theory should be, and assesses the significance of disagreement in political theory. The discussion is carried out from an angle inspired by the philosophy of science. (shrink)

SUMMARYContemporary scholars seeking to advance the study of political phenomena identify their inquiry as a ‘science' that attains success through rigorous method. Thus the ‘methodological anarchism' of Paul Feyerabend's philosophy of science might seem an inauspicious place to find a fruitful disciplinary vision. Nonetheless, it echoes a longstanding conception of the ‘science' of politics articulated by Niccolò Machiavelli. Looking to Feyerabend, we propose to surmount the impasse between Machiavelli's account of politics and the demands of modern (...) science and recover his contribution to the scientific study of politics. In doing so, Machiavelli illustrates the potential of a Feyerabendian political science. (shrink)

The paper shows the necessity to return to the origins and the true object of political science in order to obtain a new and better understanding of the key phenomena in the realm of politics, especially that of the 20th century. The classical view of “humanities” is treated as opposed to the “positivist” tradition based on the power of technology and applying the methodology and the criteria analogical to those of natural sciences. The author emphasizes the moral (...) and interpersonal character of the distinctively human world of institutions, culture, ethics and politics. In order to understand the special character of the object of political science, a reconsideration of the classical traditions in political and moral philosophy as well as a new philosophical anthropology is necessary. (shrink)

James C. Scott’s book The Art of Not Being Governed is offered, in this essay review, as the latest evidence of the high value of Scott’s transdisciplinary research into how ordinary people resist state power. Scott’s critics have found his work methodologically deficient, suggesting that his approach is more a matter of art than of science. In this defense of methodological pluralism, Scott’s approach is shown to be vindicated by his insights into how the peoples of Zomia evolved ways (...) to evade incorporation, over a period of centuries, into any of the states of Southeast Asia. Scott’s book is examined as a prime example of how the study of politics can and should help to effect political change — and its insights on anarchism as a way of life are applied to the Occupy Wall Street movement. (shrink)

Plato’s doctrine of the ideal state is the first form of political philosophy in the written history for European thought. The influence of Plato on the formation of political philosophy cannot be overestimated, since its further development in one way or another was based on the discourse and methodology that was set by his dialogues. This study aims to identify common discourses and dialectical foundations of the most influential modern schools of political philosophy converging in the (...) ideas of Plato. Also, the study is aimed at identifying the main forms in which the philosophical ideas of Plato function in modern political philosophy in an explicit and implicit way. The contribution of the research and its novelty lies in the disclosure of the implicitly immanent features that connect political philosophy with the ideas of Plato as its primary source. (shrink)

The political theory of migration has largely occurred within a paradigm of methodological nationalism and this has led to the neglect of morally salient agents and causes. This article draws on research from the social sciences on the transnationalism, globalization and migration systems theory to show how methodological nationalist assumptions have affected the views of political theorists on membership, culture and distributive justice. In particular, it is contended that methodological nationalism has prevented political theorists of migration from (...) addressing the roles of non-state agents and of transnational economic, social and political structures. These agents and structures contribute to the asymmetrical distribution of goods and opportunities and thus have important implications for debates about migration and distributive justice. (shrink)

This article analyzes the problem of preference imputation in rational choice political science. I argue against the well-established practice in political science of assuming selfish preferences for purely methodological reasons, regardless of its empirical plausibility (this I call a preference for selfish preferences). Real motivations are overlooked due to difficulties of imputing preferences to agents in a non-arbitrary way in the political realm. I compare the problem of preference imputation in economic and political markets, (...) and I show the harmful consequences of the preference for selfish preferences in the field of collective action. Key Words: rational choice theory • preference • functionalism • collective action. (shrink)

Jerry Weinberger here seeks to establish Francis Bacon's rightful place among the founders--with Machiavelli and Hobbes--of the modern political tradition, claiming that Bacon's view of the sources of the modern age has great resonance for the problems of our contemporary scientific society.

I argue against the assumption that the influence of non-cognitive values must lead to bad science and against the methodological norm that seems to some philosophers to follow from it, viz. that a good philosophy of science should analyze the morally and politically neutral production of good science. Against these, I argue for the assumption that non-cognitive values are compatible with good science and for the metaphilosophical norm that a good philosophy of science should allow (...) us to see whether and how non-cognitive values influence good science. In pursuit of one of its scandalous goals, viz. determining whether and when gender politics influence good scientific work, feminist philosophy of science is well served by this methodological norm. (shrink)

A stimulating introduction to central issues of political theory, including liberty, rights and the state, and the claims of need and politics.

This article addresses the issue of how Social Science and Humanities (SSH) researchers frame and argue relevance, where there are no explicit expectations to do so. It uses research project reports submitted to a Swedish research council, to distil and further analyze ‘relevance expressions’. These expressions illustrate some methodological differences along the lines of the long-standing distinction between nomothetic (generalization oriented) and idiographic (case /description oriented). We extracted relevance claims from a database of project abstracts and reports from the (...) following fields: History, Linguistics, Political Science and Psychology. We interrogated these statements for possible differences with respect to how relevance is expressed. The study finds differences in the way that nomothetic and idiographic expressions imply, argue or derive support for relevance, and that these may be somewhat associated with fields, although with certain qualifications. Importantly, relevance expressions can be viewed as epistemic operations that occur in degrees of concretization, broadly or narrowly formulated, and in different levels of everyday and technical expressions. A key insight is that relevance in SSH appears to be closely associated with the way subjects relate to the empirical. This ultimately lends support for the application of the nomothetic/idiographic as a conceptual, albeit not exhaustive, analytical approach to understanding the relevance of SSH. (shrink)

The book discusses methodological issues relating to the philosophy of science and the natural and social sciences. It reconstructs the methods of measurement and scientific explanation, the relation of data, phenomena and mechanisms, the problem of theory-ladenness of explanation and the problem of historic explanation. From the sciences chosen for methodological analysis are those of early classical mechanics, early thermodynamics, Bohr's theory of atom, early quantum mechanics, research into great apes and political economy.

The Oxford Handbooks of Political Science is a ten-volume set of reference books offering authoritative and engaging critical overviews of the state of political science. This volume, The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis, sets out to synthesize and critique for the first time those approaches to political science that offer a more fine-grained qualitative analysis of the political world. The work in the volume has a common aim in being sensitive to (...) the thoughts of contextual nuances that disappear from large-scale quantitative modelling or explanations based on abstract, general, universal laws of human behavior. It shows that "context matters" in a great many ways: philosophical context matters; psychological context matters; cultural and historical contexts matter; place, population, and technology all matter. By showcasing scholars who specialize in the analysis of all these contexts side-by-side, the Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis shows how political scientists can take those crucial contextual factors systematically into account. (shrink)

In their survey of empirical research based on rational choice theory, Don Green and Ian Shapiro point to a list of methodological deficiencies or ?pathologies.? The main problem with Green and Shapiro's list lies in the standards they use to evaluate the achievements of rational choice theory. These standards are derived from a view of empirical research that is deeply questionable and, in the stated form, inconsistent with both standard insights in contemporary philosophy of science and the established practice (...) in the most successful empirical sciences. (shrink)

This paper explores the methodological foundations of Thomas Piketty's recent book Capital in the twenty-first century. The current literature on Piketty's work lacks consensus as to which paradigm of economic thought Capital fits into. In response to that literature, this paper argues that Piketty offers a new methodological direction for economic science in the form of an analytical 'new-historicism'. The central emphasis of this methodology is an analysis of general dynamic laws on three levels: distribution, institutions, and history. (...) A new-historical methodological framework applies new analytical tools to old economic problems raised by Smith, Ricardo, Marx, and others. This distinguishes Piketty's framework from other contending paradigms or schools of economic thought, thereby alleviating confusion in the current literature surrounding Piketty's book. (shrink)

The paper discuss the application of qualitative and quantitative techniques in political studies. It describes the classical proposal of Johan Galtung, known as trilateral science, which invites to the permanent contrast to confirm, validate and accept facts and ideas; then it explores Grounded Theory as a mechanism to achieve and explore data in order to identify a possible dialogue with experimental methodology. Finally, it shows social capital as a case study to demonstrate the relevance of multi-methodological applications. (...) El propósito de este texto es discutir la aplicación de técnicas cualitativas y cuantitativas en los estudios políticos. Para ello, se describe la propuesta clásica de Johan Galtung, conocida como trilateralismo, que invita al contraste permanente con el fin de confirmar, validar y aceptar hechos e ideas; luego, se busca explorar la Grounded Theory como mecanismo de consecución y exploración de datos con el fin de identificar un posible diálogo con la metodología experimental. Por último, se aborda el capital social como objeto de estudio que demuestra la pertinencia de aplicaciones multimetodológicas. (shrink)

In contrast to the opinion of numerous authors (e.g. R. Rudner, P. Kitcher, L. R. Graham, M. Dummett, N. Chomsky, R. Lewontin, etc.) it is argued here that the formation of opinion in science should be greatly insulated from political considerations. Special attention is devoted to the view that methodological standards for evaluation of scientific theories ought to vary according to the envisaged political uses of these theories.

Science education is generally perceived as a key facilitator in cultivating a scientifically literate society. In the last decade, however, this conventional wisdom has been challenged by evidence that greater scientific literacy and critical thinking skills may in fact inadvertently aggravate polarization on scientific matters in the public sphere. Supporting an alternative “scientific update hypothesis,” in a series of studies (total N = 2087), we show that increased science’s epistemology literacy might have consequential population-level effects on the public’s (...) alignment with scientific results. In one exploratory study and a pre-registered national online survey, we first show that understanding scientific epistemology predicts refusal of pseudoscientific beliefs and higher scores in a methodology of science test. We also find and replicate a propensity for epistemologically literate citizens to endorse the norm of belief updating and the communicated scientific consensus following both ideologically congruent and incongruent scientific results. Notably, after 2 months of first being presented with scientific results on politically controversial issues, a one standard deviation higher score in epistemological literacy is associated with a 14% increase in the odds of individuals switching their beliefs to align with the scientifically communicated consensus. We close by discussing how, on the face of ideological incongruity, a general understanding of scientific epistemology might foster the acceptance of scientific results, and we underscore the need for a more nuanced appreciation of how education, public comprehension of scientific knowledge, and the dynamics of polarization intersect in the public sphere. (shrink)